I've heard it all. (2/8/08)

Another intake at the office. My fellow intake workers are out with the flu, which leaves me to deal with the masses on my lonesome. I've heard a lot of peculiar things... but what follows has got to be the single most awesome thing I've ever heard. A man hobbles in with an uneven gait and sits down. I peruse his file. Second-degree assault. I go through the first few pages of the application, and then I go for the statement..

Rance: "Mr. Jones*, now that we've gotten all of your identifying information, I'm going to have to ask you for a statement of the events that occurred leading up to your charges.

Mr. Jones: "We were sitting around drinking a few beers, having a good time. His girlfriend and my wife had gone out to pick up some sausage -- you know, for our Italian sausage we were going to grill -- so Pete and I stayed behind."

Rance: "I see. And you and Pete -- the other man -- you two got into an argument?"

Mr. Jones: "We did. It turned into fists. We were drunk. I was relaxing on one end of the couch, and he turned around and starting beating on me, so I ... (he pauses; he shifts uncomfortably. He pats his knee.) I ... well, I'll be honest, it was the only thing I could think of at the time."

Rance: "What did you have to do to get him off of you?"

Mr. Jones: "Beat him."

Rance: "(nodding). And did you use your fists, or--"

Mr. Jones: "At first."

Rance: "How did the fight escalate?"

Mr. Jones: "I said something to piss him off. Came out of my mouth without knowing it. He started punching me. You see my leg? (He taps at his knee again. The sound is hollow, loose, unnatural. And then, without a moment's warning, his leg comes tumbling out of his pants and onto the carpeted floor of tje office. His pantleg is suddenly empty, and he lifts the prosthetic limb up with ease, holding it high as if he were displaying a newly forged sword. "This is what I had to do. I had it off at the time. I didn't really think it would do much. (He tapped it against the side of his head and smiled sheepishly.)"

Rance: "...."

Mr. Jones: "Yup. That's what the police said, too. Not every day you can say you beat the man who used to be your best friend off of you with your own leg."

Mr. Jones: "Ha! You think that's strange? You should be a fly on the wall when my wife and I have sex. Strange? Son, you haven't seen strange."

No, I haven't. I never want to. Believe-you-me, this is why I keep this job. Every day, a new winner comes stumbling into the office with a story I never thought I'd ever hear. Something huge has gotta top this one.

And every time I say that, the next week proves to me that there indeed are even stranger people in this world.

*This name has been changed from the man's original to retain confidentiality.

It's odd that there are so many stories -- I keep journals on the side so that way I can remember them all and maybe, one day, compile them into a book full of some off-color humor! When you're dealing with people accused of crimes, you deal with all sorts of people: clean ones, dirty ones, kind ones, mean ones, fat ones, thin ones, people with mental disabilities, people with social disorders, the like. The chances of interviewing someone so strange is quite likely, as I see over one-hundred new people a week.

These are just a handful of the kinds I've come across -- I've refrained from posting the particularly disquieting ones!